EU – ASEAN Relations in the Post-2015 Climate Regime: Exploring pathways for Top-down and Bottom-up Climate Governance

Abstract

South East Asia is one of the regions that is assumed to be the most affected by the advert consequences of climate change, especially by more frequent and extreme weather events, increased risks of tropical epidemics and sea level rise. But the climate change equation in South East Asia is no longer a one-way street. The projected sustained economic growth of the region, assumed to be around 5-6% annually up to 2030, is also expected to lead to a large increase in energy consumption and corresponding regional CO2 emissions. ASEAN is thus caught up in the dilemma of developing while already facing the creeping costs of climate change, yet its engagement in global climate negotiations has been minimal. The EU's cooperation with ASEAN countries has not reached a strategic level. Most of EU-ASEAN cooperation on climate change has taken place under the umbrella of EU cooperation for development and 'bottom-up' input from these actions in the global climate negotiations has yet to materialise. The two regions seem to remain split along the 'North-South' divide. The paper argues that despite this, enhanced inter-regional cooperation on climate change can yield large benefits for climate governance. Multilateral cooperation automatisms from regionalism can provide learning experiences for the global negotiations. Moreover, a distinct ASEAN process of mainstreaming climate change in its regional community building project can potentially develop south-south cooperation and other innovative cooperation patterns that can then feed into the global level. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/published